She didn’t get to stick around to speak to her friend, for she was dragged to the centre of the town alongside a hundred or so of the women that had been captured from the caravan, about half of the overall number of kidnapped individuals. She was the ‘prize’ of this ‘round’s selection,’ as Griff had so eloquently whispered into her ear as he led her along one of the town’s dusty roads.

Once all of the others had been chosen by their prospective husbands, a large bout of yelling began that was so intense that she now understood why Griff had tried to enslave her and her friend as soon as they arrived at the settlement.

“And what makes you think you’re entitled to both of them?” snapped a stout man with bulky limbs. “Seht told me that you tried to enslave ‘em both. Just what the hell is that about?” He had a mean pair of black eyes, a thick rug of chest hair spilling out from his unbuttoned collar.

They stood in an open square paved with uneven cobblestone that was cracked in many places, though in a land as barren as this there was no grass to poke out of the exposed soil beneath. Over a thousand people had gathered.

“Because I captured them.”

“You didn’t capture this one!”

“Well, you sure as hell didn’t either.”

The two men glared at one another with hatred and avarice, though a loud voice suddenly drew their eyes to the peripherals of the crowd.

“Why don’t we go about this fairly? Since you guys can’t seem to come to an agreement, I don’t mind taking her for myself!”

“Who said that?” yelled the stout man. As the crowd began to quiet down, he sucked in a deep breath and raised his voice loud enough to shake the air before him. “I said, who the hell said that!”

“Right here!”

A callused hand rose up somewhere near the back of the crowd, though its owner was too far for Nyla to detect with her spiritual sense as limited as it was. Still, she could see that he wasn’t as tall as most of the men within eyeshot, though an impressive build was outlined beneath his fine set of green robes. His face was hidden from view by an emerald hood, though she could tell from his voice and stature that he wasn’t much older than her.

People subconsciously stepped aside until a small column of bodies led up to the unknown youth and revealed him to those at the centre of the square.

“You...” Griff hesitated. “You’re not a member of our community, are you?”

People began to murmur at the sight of the big man’s unease.

“Quiet, all of you!”

The cloud-cover from the night before had been swept away by northward winds, a vibrant sun beaming down on everyone present. The clear day allowed everyone to get a good look at the young man whose presence demanded all of their attention.

“The boss ass’d you a question,” slurred a drunken man at the sixth level of Profound Entry. He released the mortified girl that he’d just picked as his wife, placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder and gave it a hard squeeze. “When the boss talks, you—”

The youth spun on the spot so quickly that most people present didn’t get a chance to see him grab hold of the brazen bandit, Nyla included. The man had simply disappeared with an upward blur, thrown so high that the sun’s rays made it impossible to spot how far up he’d soared.

As the young man’s robes settled from the sudden motion, he tossed something down the improvised aisle that had opened up before him. A hand landed at Griff’s feet with a meaty squish, fragments of crushed bone protruding outward from the mutilated stump.

Nyla’s stare was filled with surprise and awe, though mostly confusion. I’ve never met that guy, I’m sure of it. So why is he…?

“How about it? Will you let her come along with me?”

“You might be strong,” said Griff through grated teeth, “but do you really think that you can take on all of us on your own?”

“Well, maybe not all of you. But who said that I was alone?”

Two more green-robed figures appeared atop one of the higher rooves within eyesight, one of them over twice as tall as the other.

Despite the situation, Griff couldn’t help but let out a peel of laughter. “I was expecting people as strong as you, not some little whelp and a useless man at the third level of Profound Entry!”

Many of the gathered group began to laugh as well, though a blur of motion and an explosion of blood and liquefied flesh silenced them within seconds. The drunken man had finally fallen to the ground.

“Listen, I’m not really in the mood to kill all of you. This hood’s new, and I’d rather not dirty it.” As he spoke, he pulled back the fabric to reveal a handsome face that seemed absurdly familiar despite the fact that Nyla had never laid eyes on him. A strong jawline supported a pearlescent smile, beneath a pair of startlingly golden eyes and short strands of golden hair.

“So you’re this girl’s master?”

“Master? What are you—what did you do to her?”

“Nothing.”

Thinking fast, Nyla called out to the unknown youth, whom she felt a strange sense of trust toward. “He tried to enslave me. He did the same with my friend!”

Griff cuffed her in the side of the head, which sent her a dozen paces away in a disorienting tumble.

The young man narrowed his eyes and then tugged at his hood with a frown. “Listen up! Those who don’t want to die, get out of here right now. I won’t ask again!”

Nyla was pleased to see that nearly all of the women rushed into the surrounding alleyways without second thoughts. Those that remained drew their weapons and prepared for the coming engagement, though what happened next brought about great confusion.

The two hooded figures on the distant rooftops suddenly produced large barrels, the taller of the two patting the smaller on the shoulder in a reassuring manner. The blond boy disappeared in a flash as his companions hurled the containers into the crowd. By the time the first ones exploded, another pair landed elsewhere within the square with successive thunderclaps. Massive plumes of smoke engulfed the area as devastating shockwaves shook the ground, screams of shock and terror soon followed by wails of pain. Nobody had expected such a frightening scene to unfold, let alone prepared for it.

Those barrels…

Nyla’s surroundings changed as she struggled to make sense of the sudden development, though she quickly realized that the blond-haired boy had scooped her up and retreated to the rooftop where his accomplices still threw their deadly explosives.

So fast!

“Careful now.” The strange youth set her down upon the slanted roof. “I probably should have asked this earlier, but you’re Nyla, right?”

“How do you—no, where did you get that black powder?”

“Not now. Guys, that’s enough with the barrels. It doesn’t look like they want to attack us.”

Most of the survivors had scattered into the surrounding alleyways, though many lay disoriented within the thick cloud of smoke that continued to spread upward and outward like an expulsion from the peak of an angry mountain.

“But we told Nolan we’d wait for him here,” said the man. “Speaking of the kid, he’s taking his sweet time getting your sister.”

Things had become so surreal that it was difficult to process what exactly was going on. Dazed and in disbelief, Nyla walked over to the man that had just mentioned a name that struck hard at unknown cords within her heart.

“Nolan…you just said Nolan. Where is he?”

An intimidating crash resonated from the northern area of the town.

“Uh, I’m guessing over there?”

Ignoring her saviors, she leapt off of the rooftop and into the smokescreen, her skin stained by a light rainfall of blood droplets that was only now beginning to subside. She ignored the dead and dying as she rushed northward, toward the sources of the successive sounds of destruction that crept ever nearer from the buildings where Lyra and the other girls were being held captive. The fact that those three had shown up to save her, a stranger, that they possessed the peculiar black powder that only her friend knew how to create, and that they knew his name…

“Nolan!” she cried out, hoping that he would hear her. No, if he were here then he definitely would. “Nolan, where are you?”

Two auras closed in on her as she dashed past a shadowy intersection, both in the middle levels of Profound Entry. A pair of cowering bandits had spotted her and immediately rushed after her upon recognizing her from the square. Whatever their intentions, she didn’t have time to waste on them, not when she suspected that her closest friend was nearby.

Both men wore astonished expressions as they were encased in large globes of spiritual energy, which violently lifted them dozens of paces into the air before smashing them down into the dirt pathway with dull thuds of impact and light crunches of breaking bones. Though her cultivation was sealed at the first level of Profound Entry, her spiritual sense was almost fully operable. While the range of her detections had decreased, she could still expel as much power as her spiritual space had to offer.

She arrived at the series of stone buildings where the girls were being held, only to find the doors smashed in and the interiors empty.

“Nolan! I’m here, by the stone—”

The hairs on the back of her neck rose up as a she was overtaken by a bulky shadow. Someone had appeared behind her, the man that had argued with Griff over who would take her on as his woman. Eyes widening, she spun on the spot in an attempt to avoid the man’s sweeping arm, for he evidently intended to grab hold of her and flee the town. She readied her spiritual energy to crush him into paste, though she was spared the effort as a smaller figure collided with him before he could lay a finger on her. The impact kicked up a large cloud of dust and debris, and caused her to fall flat on her behind.

She remained on the ground as the dust began to clear, staring up with a blank expression as she was overcome with a multitude of overwhelming emotions. The large man squirmed like a suffocating fish in his final moments as he tried to crawl to safety, though this was made impossible due to the fact that his attacker’s right leg was buried deep into his bleeding back.

“Uhg, gross,” said Nolan as he pulled his leg free of the limp corpse, staring at the bloodstained cloth around his ankle. “And I just fixed these up.” He looked a bit different than she remembered, his hair shorn off at the sides and trimmed short on the top, a very flattering style that she’d never seen before. He wore the same clothes as the three from earlier, a snug tunic with an angled dip at the collar and long flowing sleeves, along with a matching pair of pine-coloured pants. Over the tunic was a sleeveless, vest-like robe of a lighter shade of green, which made for a rather neat appearance.

“Nolan…”

He stared down at her with the sweetest smile that she’d ever seen him wear, oddly contrasted with the settling dust, the lightly indented earth and the dead man in between.

“Are you gonna sit there staring, or are you going to get up and give me a hug?”

Throughout her journey northward, she’d never truly believed that she would reunite with her friend. Even so, she’d pressed onward. With no home to return to and no family still in this world, she had nothing else to keep her going but the thought of one day reuniting with the only person that was close to her.

She accepted his outstretched hand and found herself wrapped in his arms a moment later. She had never felt so relieved in all her life, so assured that her future would turn out fine as she was in this moment.

She tucked her head between his neck and shoulder. “I…missed you.”

“Missed is an understatement.”

“I can’t believe you’re here.”

“That’s what I should be saying. Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you?”

Warmth flooded her chest, a comforting sensation. Rather than respond with words, she pulled her head back ever so slightly, leaned in and gently pressed her lips against his. The kiss lasted nearly a full minute before it was interrupted by another pair of lurking bandits that would have been considered powerful amongst their ranks, neither showing any fear. She made to pull away so that they could deal with the unwelcome interruption, though Nolan slid a hand over the small of her back and pressed her back into another passionate kiss, the approaching auras snuffed out like they never existed.

When they finally separated, she saw that both men lay dead about a dozen paces away, with so many thick needles stabbed deep into their heads that it was impossible to make out any features of distinction.

“Motherfuckers…” mumbled Nolan as he glared at the dead men. “Can’t even have a minute to myself anymore.”

Nyla let out a soft string of laugher.

“What?”

“I’m glad to see that you haven’t changed.”